


salvatore

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Character Study, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Gen, Mark dies, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-11 14:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15973787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Mark left to a road trip, he comes back as a ghost.





	salvatore

**Author's Note:**

> hi its me again with one of my unorthodox fics, so i was thinking about mark graduating but my brain was all "kill mark" so here's the fic  
> first lines are from my own private river screenplay!

1.

The first time Jeno met Mark, he had a feeling he was a sort of comic book hero. He was the sun and they were the planets, spinning around him. Jeno simply wanted to reach and touch him, but he always remained unattainable.

Looking at his right face now, when the sunlight shines off his lower lip, like it is the face of some sort of statue. Strong and soft at the same time. Jeno would make a bet with anybody right now, that Mark was a saint or a hero, or some such higher placed person.

2.

Mark has five sweatshirts, three of them are currently in Donghyuck’s closet. Donghyuck usually wears the yellow one when he’s feeling melancholic.

He says, “It matches my mood.”

Donghyuck misses Mark mostly on summer days, which was stupid because they were always together. But it was different, they all knew it. Summer was their _thing._ Now it's just Donghyuck’s.

3.

Renjun feels a burden on his back. It's too complicated without Mark there. He sometimes thinks it’s too much to handle. That his back would break and everything will slip from his hands.

“I had a dream about you.” Mark tells him one day. “You were dancing.”

Mark gives him one of his small smiles, those half-sided with the dimples in sight.

“I know you feel like it’s too hard right now, but in my dream you were happy... I was watching you dance, you looked so carefree, so secure.”

Renjun nods sightly and looks at Mark.

“You will do fine.”

4.

His ghost didn't seem to hold a grudge. Donghyuck simply took Mark’s shoulders in his tender sun-kissed hands and said, “You look half-dead!”

5.

He was always running, until he became a ghost.

6.

Donghyuck comes home to meet Mark in their living room, flipping through their books and sipping Coca-Cola.

 _Odd._ Because Mark likes coffee.

They say goodbye at the Marseille train station. Jaemin kindly packed his luggage into a taxi. The end of a long day in wounded silence.  
  
7.

They meet again after three months, but it feels like five years.

“Long time no see, it’s been ages.” Mark says half joking, but for Donghyuck it wasn’t like that. It was never like that. How _cruel_ is time.

8.

Jaemin doesn't smoke but he feels like he wants to. He thought the night would be shorter.

9.

Autumn turns to spring. Jeno watches the flickering traffic lights and the drifting fallen leaves.

10.

The air of the big city is polluted. They see the neon lights as the night goes down.Their shadows slide between passersby and the night spreads as they look at the vitrines.

11.

Mark died on a warm day of July, he comes back three days later.

12.

In Ancient Greek, Patroclo had Achilles.

Alexander the Great had Hephaestion.

“And what about you?” He asks.

“Well, it's like I’m Ceaser, and you’re Brutus.”

13.

 _You have to be very fond of ghosts. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they’re simply unbearable._ Renjun reads and reads the phrase for what it feels like ages until he can't comprehend the words.

He thinks, “how could anybody stay sane after losing him?”

14.

He comes back, in the summer rain. There's no sun and there’s no hope. They can forgive him for leaving, but they can’t forgiving him for coming back.

15.

They’re in an alternate universe, if they in fact exist. And they do.

The sky isn’t blue but his hair color is the same. Jeno looks at his eyes, they’re another shade of brown.

Winter is cruel.

16.

Renjun decides to take the vow of silence and he doesn’t speak for three weeks. Instead, he writes letters.

He writes about love songs, summer nights and singing birds. Children are chirping on the park next to his house. Renjun writes another letter.

Mark’s there.

17.

“Your best friend died five years ago.” But it wasn’t five. It was longer, longer than that.

18.

They didn't realize he died until they saw him on that day. The sunlight dazzled and blinded them. It was like a normal day, another working day. None of them saw it coming.

But he did say goodbye, in his own way of course. Not to them, but to life.

On a summer night, a bonfire in the sand, a circle of seven young guys.

The sea is a good place to think about the future.

19.

A quarter to eight, Donghyuck doesn’t have any worries. His chin is on his left hand, there’s a faint smile on his face, the air is cold around him.

The red door opens and Mark enters, but it’s as if Donghyuck isn't even there (or is it vice versa?). 

Silence rises in his half empty glass, frozen after the candles burned out. And on the top of the white tablecloth, there’s a long shadow silhouette.

20.

Renjun hates himself for getting already used to the idea of him not being here. In a year, he’ll maybe think about him every once in a while. Then, he’ll become an anecdote. A thing to say.

21.

Jeno read every book on Mark’s bookshelf, every newspaper he had on his room and every note he left them. Jaemin said he was being obsessed, Donghyuck avoided his gaze and Renjun didn’t speak like he used to.

“No matter how much you love him, it’s useless, he’s just a ghost now.”

22.

Donghyuck asks Renjun to speak French and then shortly he asks him to translate. Donghyuck thinks it’s more significant like that.

23.

Mark could hear the sound of his own heart, his lungs flood and the blood course.

24.

Jaemin’s at the sea, with the salty water up to his ankles and the view of the end of the pier. He wishes that he'd just float away with the high tie. The weather is cloudy and the sea has the same color of grey, and the landscape looks just like the edge of the world.

25.

Donghyuck leans in and make their lips touch, it’s barely a quickly peek. More like touching his chin because he’s too drowsy by the early morning gaze.

26.

Jaemin hates mornings, he hates to get up early, he hates to make breakfast and he hates the four cups of coffee that never manage to wake him up. But especially this morning, because Mark is with him and there’s nothing he can do to make him stay.

Mark waves at him, he’s a blurred figure of what was once alive, his smile is lost with the breeze.

Jaemin doesn’t wave back.

27.

He’s physically far, and his heart is also far.

28.

Dead in the middle of the street. No witnesses.

29.

Very quickly Jaemin was moved to anger. He wrote about it in the tiny book. But very quickly he was moved to laughter. The bird sings, the bird lies.

30.

After the accident, the car is so damaged that it’s impossible to recognize it, the crash ruined the entire front of the car, the pieces of bumper glass scattered on the sidewalk.

31.

Donghyuck looks out from the window, he looks at the sky and the trees touching the clouds. He thinks about him.

No, it’s not a broken thought, it’s a broken heart.

32.

“Why are you still crying?”

“You don’t understand grief.”

33.

Jeno remains silent.

They’re in their bedroom and Jaemin is looking at him with a piercing gaze.

Jaemin misses Jeno, just as much as he misses Mark.

34.

Back to the summer they all drove out to Arizona.

Back where it all began.

35..

Please, say goodbye. Please, say goodbye.

Please, leave.

Please, say goodbye.

36.

They were looking for an empty beach, they walked for hours looking for the perfect one.

It wasn’t until sunset downed upon them that they found it.

37.

The ghost shows on Jeno’s bedroom on Sunday mornings and late Thursday afternoons.

Jeno smiles everytime, but deep down his heart hurts.

“Ask him to leave.” says Jaemin, on a Thursday 13th.

“I can’t do that.”

“Then I’ll leave.” And Jaemin crosses the door.

38.

Jaemin ignores Mark’s ghost most of the time. They don’t speak.

39.

Please, never say goodbye.

Please, never leave.

40.

His ghost says goodbye in a way that sounds like: _Believe me, I loved you all._

41.

Donghyuck and Renjun hang out together more often than before. Donghyuck’s impatient, he kisses Renjun's neck in an attempt to catch his attention.  

42.

Renjun writes letters for Donghyuck, Jaemin and Jeno, but mostly for Mark.

Its meanings shifts slightly from _“How could anything bad ever happen to you?”_ to _“You're on my mind, all day, all night.”_ to _“You give me courage.”_

43.

When Donghyuck approached Mark's body in the coffin at the day of the funeral, he stood there looking at his soft features, how he looked like a child, he remembers how he had seen Mark laugh at nothing at all just a few days ago, but the sweetest thing he ever saw him was this, asleep and dreaming.

His mother interrupted him. Then she went and hugged him but he didn't want a hug.

He wanted to be alone with Mark.

44.

“Are you happy his ghost left?

“No.” Jaemin says.

**Author's Note:**

> title inspire by this [song](https://open.spotify.com/track/21qg0IBZf8R12qHd9A3AA4?si=IbBQeZwORyyFBSdQOKznjA)  
> excerpts from: this insatiable love and les vitrines by kid francescoli, the sea is a good place to think about the future by los campesinos, dinner by suho and some @poetastrologers tweets.


End file.
